“I’m an ambitious driver and I try to help my team,” he said. “My ambition now is to try to help my team get second in the Constructors’ Championship. We lost lots of points but we will try to recover as soon as possible.

“We finished 14 seconds behind Red Bull. I don’t think that is too big a distance or something that we cannot recover over the rest of the season. I’m sure I will recover this and try to finish ahead of Red Bull next time.”

The Spaniard added that Red Bull’s victory at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is proof that Ferrari can still win a race this season. “We saw in Canada that anything can happen in Formula 1,” he explained.

“If someone had told us Red Bull would win a race in the first seven or eight races of the championship after the last winter test, no one would believe it. Mercedes was so dominant, but suddenly they had mechanical issues and you need to be there to take the opportunities and Red Bull was there.

“That gives us motivation and shows us how things can change in F1 during a race weekend – it can be the weather, it can be the safety cars, it can be many different factors that dictate the final result of a grand prix.

“So, can we win a race this year? Yes, obviously anything can happen. But that’s not at the moment something that worries me too much. We have much bigger problems than trying to win a race, we will try to finish in the best possible positions in the races, try to get some podiums, try to help the team with points. That’s the only thing I want.”

Image courtesy of Octane Photographic

Jack Leslie

Jack Leslie is a freelance motorsport and Formula 1 journalist. He has been part of the Richland F1 team since the very start and made his F1 paddock debut for the website at the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix. Jack also writes for Car Throttle, RumbleStripNews, Formula1Blog, PureF1 and F1 Plus, as well as running a popular blog.